Corporation radar to cover all healthcare units in city

CHENNAI: The Chennai Corporation has initiated a move to register and monitor all hospitals and diagnostic centres in the city. The exercise, meant to ensure quality healthcare and efficient feedback to evolve health policies, would cover government and private health care providers.
While the 513 city hospitals already registered with the corporation have been reporting births and deaths, not many hospitals were notifying incidences of communicable diseases, the city health authorities felt.As many as 112 health providers have registered with the corporation in the last one month.
"A majority of cases of infectious diseases go unreported to us. Public health is all about prevention and we need to ensure that all hospitals are registered with the corporation," said corporation deputy commissioner Ashish Kumar.
The new procedure makes it mandatory for all health service providers to give not just medical details, but also those of facilities such as fire extinguishers, emergency exits, building, operation theatres, equipment, air-conditioning and ventilation.
The registeration also mandates the institutions to display the qualification of their employees and register numbers of all medical and paramedical personnel in Tamil and English. "This would help get rid of quackery," said corporation commissioner D Karthikeyan. He feels the reporting system will help management of contagious diseases and policy-making better.
At present, action plans to counter contagious diseases are made on inputs from the 70 dispensaries and 90 public health posts run by the corporation. These services are availed mostly by low-income groups living in the slums. With a wider network for feedback, the civic body hopes, it can formulate its strategies better. "For example, if there are many cases of malaria or diarrhoea reported from a locality, our sanitary and health staff can immediately take up anti-mosquito operations," says an official.
In the last three months, the city has recorded 1,333 cases of malaria, 244 cases of chicken pox, 193 cases of acute diarrhoeal diseases, 54 dengue cases, 60 leptospirosis cases, 27 cases of measles, 11 hepatitis B cases, four cases of HIV, two cases each of cholera and mumps, and one case of chikungunya. The numbers could be much higher, if private hospitals report to the corporation promptly, said health officials.
The registration also seeks to look at building structure, trade licenses for canteens in hospitals, sewage and biomedical waste disposal methods and property tax payment details. The corporation will certify water quality, scientific closure of over head tank, cistern and sump. "To remove any doubts the stakeholders may have, we will hold a meeting with all of them," Ashish Kumar said.